Police Search Car Incident to Arrest for Driving on a Suspended License. Does SILA cover it?

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Adrick Ruckes ("Ruckes") was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm and possessing cocaine base with the intent to distribute following a search of his automobile. He moved to suppress the evidence discovered during that search: a 9mm handgun and over six grams of crack cocaine. After an evidentiary hearing, Judge Franklin D. Burgess of the Western District of Washington denied his motion.
Ruckes entered a conditional guilty plea and filed this timely appeal. He maintains that Washington State Trooper Kenyon Wiley's search was not valid incident to his arrest because he was not arrested until after contraband was located within the vehicle. Following the district court's analysis, the government proffers two alternative theories for upholding the conviction. First, it argues that the search was proper because, under New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981), when officers have probable cause to effect a full custodial arrest of a vehicle's recent occupant, a search of the passenger compartment of the vehicle is warranted. Second, to the extent the search was not incident to Ruckes's arrest, the firearm and cocaine would have been discovered during a routine inventory search of the vehicle after impound. The district court relied on both grounds to uphold the search.
After this case was submitted for decision, the Supreme Court handed down Arizona v. Gant, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 1710, 1719, 173 L.Ed.2d 485 (2009), which limits the applicability of Belton to situations where (1) "the arrestee is unsecured and within reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time of the search," or (2) it is "reasonable to believe evidence relevant to the crime of arrest might be found in the vehicle." (Internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Because we find that Trooper Wiley's search of Ruckes's vehicle does not fit within either of these two narrow situations to satisfy the search-incident-to-arrest exception to the warrant requirement, we hold that this search cannot be sustained on this theory under the Fourth Amendment. However, because the district court did not err in alternatively holding that the drugs and firearm would have been uncovered during a routine inventory search of the vehicle upon impound, we affirm its denial of the motion to suppress under the doctrine of inevitable discovery.
Read full case here: U.S. v. Ruckes, 586 F.3d 713, 714-15 (9th

Anton Vialtsin, Esq.
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